"The push to France likely represents the next stage of ISIS," said Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

"We'll see them increasingly move away from conventional and insurgent operations in Iraq and Syria and more towards terrorist attacks in their extended network," he said.

‘Unprecedented attack' Since the January attack on the Paris offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in which more than a dozen people were killed, French police have detained several individuals with alleged ties to ISIS.

The string of incidents, according to jihadism analyst Aymenn al-Tamimi, indicate that "it's questionable to call (the Paris attack) a shift in strategy."

The ISIS militant group has released images claiming to show the destruction of the Baalshamin Temple in Palmyra.
Standing at the far eastern end of the main colonnaded street, the temple represents the most important religious building of the 1st century A.D. in the Middle East.